Ex-hospital aide investigated in patient assaults

April 1, 2014 09:25 AM

April 1, 2014 09:25 AM

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former nursing assistant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is under investigation after two women said they were sexually assaulted while being treated at the Los Angeles hospital, police said.

During the investigation, a detective discovered two older sexual assault accusations by patients against Guillermo Fernando Diaz, as well as a decade-old complaint by a co-worker who claimed Diaz raped her after an office party, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday (http://lat.ms/1gKGwsI ).

None of those cases resulted in criminal charges.

Detectives served a search warrant at Cedars-Sinai earlier this year to obtain disciplinary records for Diaz, who had been assigned to a heart patient area, the Times reported.

Diaz, 56, was fired as a nursing assistant in July, the hospital said.

The women in the current investigation came forward separately last year and gave police similar accounts about how a male employee assaulted them while they were heavily medicated and too weak to resist, according to court records obtained by the newspaper.

A district attorney's spokeswoman said prosecutors were reviewing whether to file criminal charges.

In November, the state Department of Public Health revoked Diaz's nursing assistant certification after conducting an investigation into the sexual assault allegations. In a letter informing Diaz of its decision, the agency said it had substantiated multiple allegations of unprofessional conduct.

One of the patients told police she had been sedated before surgery in April 2013 when a nursing assistant entered her room and offered her a back rub, according to the warrant. The patient said the employee began rubbing her breast and groin area, the warrant stated.

The patient told police she repeatedly told him to stop and tried to yell at him but did not have the strength, according to the court document. She identified Diaz in a police photo lineup, the warrant said.

Soon afterward, another former patient told the hospital and police that she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male employee in 2009.

She said a hospital social worker told her the description of the employee matched Diaz, the warrant stated. The patient did not identify Diaz as her attacker in a photo lineup, according to the warrant.

Diaz has been interviewed by police several times in the past 14 years and denied sexually assaulting patients or the co-worker, according to the search warrant.

Diaz declined to speak to the newspaper.

Cedars-Sinai spokeswoman Sally Stewart said the hospital has taken steps to link previously separate databases of employee records, patient complaints and other information.

The hospital made the changes to improve tracking of allegations against individual staff members, she said.